by A. C. Bextor
This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © A.C. Bextor 2017
Empires and Kings
Title ID: 6558138
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Description
Note to readers
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Other titles by A.C. Bextor
For Our Narnia…
The Wiccan, her raisin, and all their mercury and sage.
It’s still funny.
The best-selling author of KEPT – A Second Chance Fairy Tale and The Lights of Peril series introduces a new three-part series filled with passion, suspense, loyalty, and intrigue.
I was known only as the traitor’s daughter.
When I was five years old, my father was tortured, branded with the letter ‘Z’, then beaten and left for dead. The grueling punishment for his crime was a reminder to all others who dared threaten the Russian’s reign.
I was the young girl left behind. A living piece of the traitorous puzzle the Russian leader tried so diligently to ignore.
Until I grew up. No longer could he deny how much my existence had always been intertwined with his. And in order to survive the life I was thrown into, I was forced to learn my place inside of it.
Vlad Zalesky was a tyrant to the lost.
I hated him.
He was a terror of mass destruction.
I was afraid of him.
He was a tormentor of the weak.
But not far beneath the venomous man’s outward indifference was something else.
Vlad Zalesky carried secrets of unrestrained burden. He carried them like cruel blades. I wanted to know those secrets.
And because of my decisions, someone in our family had to pay.
Due to content, this book should be read only by those over the age of 18.
Note to readers
Due to the numerous family backgrounds involved in this series, you may notice I did not use the formal names for each position within the organization.
To simplify and keep the flow consistent, I’ve used terms such as ‘second-in-command’ or ‘guard’ versus what they’re actually called per family, per unit.
I hope this doesn’t affect or take away from your enjoyment of the story, but clarifies any possible character confusion.
Thank you,
A.C.
My hand trembles with relentless fury as I dangle the heavy black whip, laced with fresh blood, closely at my side. My chest and back burn with exhaustion, aching after hours of inflicting pain against my target.
Enzen Koslief.
The man tied up before me, a traitor to his own kind, hangs motionless by the thick ropes binding him to an old and splintered wooden cross. The turncoat’s feet dangle haplessly beneath him. The tips of his toes sway through the pools of his own spilled blood in accord with each strike of torture I inflict.
Rarely do I take it upon myself to dole out such physical punishment, but tonight an unbridled desire led me to it. The weight of responsibility I’ve endured over the course of the past year has come to surface and to an irrefutable degree. This traitor has merely given me reason to purge my self-harbored frustration.
The offender in question was once acclaimed to be a sharp, loyal soldier. The captain in charge of Enzen’s block often praised the soldier’s lavish thirst for combat. Throughout his eleven years within my organization, Koslief has dutifully done all he was ever asked and to exact specifications.
To speak of his commitment to this family, after only eighteen months within his position he was promoted. Nonetheless, it was I who ordered his advancement.
The abhorrent shock in finding out this man is a conspirator, collaborating against the brotherhood itself, came with several cardinal questions. If these questions are to go unanswered, the person’s name who baited Enzen to turn against his own not seized, everything my men have worked to procure by way of territory and business thus far stands for nothing.
“You were planning to take over one of my stables, Enzen,” I seethe, raising the whip before slicing another mark into the flesh of my detainee’s chest.
His jaw tenses, and his head rears back as the pain inevitably echoes throughout his body.
“A stable you had no right to take,” I add, at the same time delivering another strike in quick succession to the one before.
Obediently, acting as ever the dedicated soldier to his king, the wounded man lifts his head to mine. There, I meet his eyes in challenge. The depth of Enzen’s contemplation is dark, hazing with loss and lurching in agonizing pain. Within the resolve of his eyes, I sense the traitor has finally come to terms, recognizing he’s soon to take his final breath.
“I did as I was told,” the duplicitous man aims to convince as sweat and tears run in tandem down his face, dropping to rest on the edge of his chin. “I didn’t know he was planning—”
My grim leer quickly settles, wordlessly advising him to use careful caution before excusing himself further. His reason trails to a fragile mumble as he bows his head to wait.
Part of me believes my
once-faithful brother is silently praying for my mercy to spare his life. The other part surmises he’s praying for my mercy to end it.
In no way would this captive implore my forgiveness. Not now. The willful and resilient never do. Negotiating for pardon after being found guilty would only prove he’s weak. And still he’d die, no matter how—coward, criminal, or traitor.
“Tell me, Enzen, who coerced you to consider an act of treason against your own?” I press, reining in my temper so he can clearly comprehend my question. Still so slow and with attentive calmness, I inform, “The mercy you’ll beg me for is contingent upon your answer.”
When no response is offered, I place the battered whip on top of a cool metal table, freeing my grasp for the next implement in torture.
Fair to say that Enzen’s already been worked over.
The traitor had already come to recognize that his last breath was to be taken inside this dark, damp, and death-impending shed. With only one chained light hanging from the ceiling, giving him a glimpse of the darkness that would soon consume his soul, I’d been told that Enzen didn’t fight. He didn’t speak. He looked around the room, taking in the walls decorated with blades, chains, and metal. He was resigned to die and had already come to peace with death.
Enzen must’ve realized my men had been prepared for this.
Before I arrived, Enzen’s fingernails had already been removed, several of his toes had been broken, and his nose, now three times its natural size, had been bleeding profusely.
My advisor and closest confidante, Abram Wiles, had studiously listened to my order to have my men wound, but not kill, the outed traitor. As always, Abram followed the directive through with precise measure.
“Do you have any last words?” I inquire, half hoping the person’s name I desire so badly falls from Enzen’s lips. The other half wishes for him to remain quiet so that he dies a loyal man—even if his loyalty lies to a traitor much like himself.
“Tell my family I love them.” Enzen voices the requests with sadness while eyeing the the black rod warming at my feet. “Tell them I chose my family first,” he begs.
Family first.
In terms of this organization, family is the brotherhood, the sanction to which all soldiers pledge their lives to protect. Family is not the women in their beds nor the children in their yards.
Family is our organization.
“You love them?” I question.
“Yes,” he gasps.
“You sealed their fate by doing what you’ve done, Enzen.”
“No,” he denies, understanding my intent.
He should understand, being that he’s witnessed this before.
“I’m going to sell them to pay off what your betrayal cost me. You don’t love them at all.”
A guttural wave of anguish spews from Enzen’s throat. More aimless tears stain his cheeks. The once-dormant cords of his neck grotesquely bulge in protest. His chest, openly bleeding from hours of endured torture, strains with the power he uses against the ropes in hopes to gain his freedom from its tethering binds.
As I bend to grab the branding iron carrying the letter ‘Z’ at its end, I consider the irony that not only am I ready to end my first life but that the life I’m about to take belongs to one of my own.
Sullen with diminutive doubt, I press forward, gripping the black rod tightly. Often this implement is used to mark a man, no matter if he’s left dead or alive. Liars, cheaters, thieves, and traitors are given the same recognizable brand. If they’re left to live, they’ll remember what they’ve done to earn the scar to their stomach. If they’re dead, those who find and bury them will know, as well.
Once upright, I cast a confident glimpse to Abram. I find my dark-haired, broad-shouldered, confident advisor standing behind me as he always does—with loyalty, understanding, and certainty.
Abram curtly nods, wordlessly assuring this is what has to happen.
An important message must be sent to others.
A terrifying lore must be decreed.
A critical warning sent for all to receive.
There is no proxy in punishment for those who deceive. No forgiveness offered to those who fall prey to their own weakness. And no loyalty ties resilient enough to exonerate such premeditated betrayal.
The true family, our organization, must always come first.
“Daddy?” A small voice penetrates the room, pulling me from carrying out my planned revenge.
When I turn in place, I survey a small child, who must be all of five years old, standing in the doorway. Her fingers are clutching the silver handle, and her small body remains stoic and unmoving.
A little girl.
A forsaken casualty who will be left to suffer in a war between this city’s mobbed families.
A slight, green-eyed child standing alone, yet seemingly unafraid, thick among monsters masking themselves as men.
With her bare feet hitting the soiled floor one after another, she races faster and faster to get closer. In an unyielding attempt to save her father, she cries in shrieks of terror, piercing every ear she passes.
“Daddy! Daddy, no!”
As she starts to race by me on her way to him, I drop the branding iron and quickly bend to wrap my arm around her small waist. She weighs but nothing, and even with no hope of escaping, her body continues its fight to be free.
“Finish this,” I order Abram, at the same time fighting against her desperation in order to hold her closely to my side.
Her kicking and screaming continues, unleashing her fears the only way a little girl of her age knows how.
“Please,” she begs, sobbing and using her fingernails to shred my skin.
Her small hands push against my arm as her legs thrash against my thigh.
“Daddy!” she cries again.
Enzen’s moan of anguish mixes incoherently with his insincere vow of proclaimed love for this child.
A part of the same family he proclaimed to love.
The moment I turn my back on what I’ve started, life as I thought I knew it flashes before my eyes, caging my mind with doubt and sinking my chest with regret.
The stench of impending death bathes me as I take one step out of the room with her in my arms.
A glimpse of life untouched by death embarks as she finally succumbs to settle in my hold, seemingly giving up hope of ever seeing her father again.
When another of her harrowing sobs releases against my shoulder, everything I ever thought I believed comes to revelation.
With her body trembling in its discerned grief, my strong mind and solemn spirit give way.
As her voice breaks, calling for him once more, my urge to take a man’s life swiftly fades.
I begin to doubt my life’s position and its purpose.
Thoughts of triumph and success no longer seem vital.
For once, my heart breaks for what another will inevitably lose.
And as the beautiful girl with snowy white hair and impenetrable green eyes utters my name in a way I’ve never heard it said before, a darkened sense of uncertainty voices its penance.
In the chaotic shadows of my conscience, the voice tells me this girl will serve as a knot which ties me to a future I’ll one day come to regret.
Fifteen years later…
“Why are you in such a mood?” my sister Faina morosely questions, sitting in the black leather chair directly across from mine.
My office, which my sister insisted be adorned with deep red walls and coal black trim, is located on the main floor of our family’s home. Most times, if I’m not out visiting one of our stables, I can be found in here. The oversized black sofa which sits along the farthest wall has doubled as a bed on many occasions.
With a smug grin, Faina accuses, “Did you and that little whore have a tiff?”
“Don’t start with this again,” I warn. “Katrina has nothing to do with my mood.”
Her eyebrows lift, and she smirks. “Probably not considering what I he
ard coming from your room last night. I’m your sister. I shouldn’t have to remind you that—”
“Enough,” I snap.
Arguing further, Faina presses, “I don’t like her, Vlad. That woman has always been trouble.”
The ‘her’ my sister refers to is Katrina Marx, the young woman I hired three years ago to run my most profitable stables, Recherché. The location is kept hidden from civilians, run mainly by the women who live there and the men who operate it.
Katrina takes care of the girls’ personal needs, training and readying them for their many important ‘appointments’ with the nameless faces they’re paid to pleasure. As reward, Katrina takes a healthy cut from their work, as well as a hefty salary paid to her by my family.
“Katrina doesn’t know her place,” Faina spits. “Because you let her in your bed, she believes she has a place inside our family when she absolutely does not.”
My sister’s observations aren’t far from the truth. However, I don’t care to justify what I do or don’t do, nor who I choose to do it with.
Whether Faina concedes or not, Katrina Marx is a smart, attractive, and talented woman. Smart in business, attractive in a way only an experienced woman can be, and talented with the assets God saw fit to gift her. She’s tall with dark eyes, dark hair, bronzed skin, and possesses incredible confidence.
“Katrina is no more than a business manager and a woman I occasionally fuck, Faina. Not that my sex life is any of your business.”
Her nose scrunches in disgust. “No, your sex life isn’t, but your health is. You should get checked. Katrina’s been used a lot.”
God, my sister.
Katrina is the one woman’s body that I’ve allowed myself to use in order to relieve my sexual frustrations. In doing so, no promises between us are ever pledged. No amount of intimacy is ever expressed. Passion and desire fall prey only to carnal necessity.